Africa
Governor Saraki And White Zimbabwe Farmers
By Christopher C. Eke, NVS 23/8/10
Aug 24, 2010 - 8:41:32 AM

Once upon a time, a very long time ago, there were white people who scrambled for Africa. Their main intent was to exploit black people and take our primary products to develop their homelands. That’s contrary to any other salient claims they submitted as reasons for partitioning Africa. Today, Africa remains a viable continent, a brave new world waiting to be further economically discovered. It is a continent blessed with rich resources, huge land mass, life-sustaining and awe-inspiring vegetations and engaging people.  The promise of Africa, the second largest continent in the world, is endless and evident from the hills of the Kilimanjaro to the exotic Timbuktu, to the historic majesty of Cape Town and to the wild wind sand dunes of the savanna desert. No wonder it should attract the next wave of migration of those who wish to employ their abundant wealth to develop this great continent. That’s particularly why it’s a brilliant idea to welcome white Zimbabwe farmers in Kwara State, Nigeria.

It’s the type of outside the box thinking that has elevated Governor Bukola Saraki, as my all time Nigerian hero. While his political peers are busy stealing public funds and illegally exporting local resources abroad, this Nigerian hero has instituted a pragmatic approach to secure the inflow of foreign resources to develop the most populous African nation on earth, so that one day soon the nation might actually attain agricultural sufficiency.  During the early 1970s, my Dad spent time in Kabba, Kwara State, as part of the Nigerian Police Force, and I spent some time there too, visiting the area—peaceful area, great climate, warm and friendly people.

Unlike many Nigerians who emigrate to western countries in search of better lives or the puritans who left Europe many centuries ago in search of religious freedom in the new world, these Zimbabwe white farmers were in search of freedom to farm after having been kicked out of their country without compensation by one of Africa’s saddest knuckle head dictators, Robert Mugabe. Granted within the turbulent history of Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, long time ago whites used their ‘wind of change policy’ to reserve to themselves extensive farmland and the best positions in the social structure of Zimbabwe; over time, one of a better strategic policy initiatives could’ve been to impose a reasonable special taxation on these farmers and use the funds to settle blacks as correction to the inequity created by white dominance of the Zimbabwe economy. Governor Saraki paid for these farmers to come to Kwara State and promised them land on 25-year leases with bank loans underwritten by the government.

Now that Governor Saraki and Kwara State allowed them to come to Nigeria to farm, I urge successive governments to do all that are necessary to see that they succeed. Their success will benefit Nigeria not just in shifting our economy away from its heavy dependence on crude oil, but also in helping alleviate Nigeria’s chronic employment issues. This will also reduce the number of subsistent farmers or decline the population of those on farmlands to less than 10% of Nigeria’s population, improve lifestyles and move agriculture from its current 25% to 50% of Nigeria’s gross domestic products, bringing the country closer to being able to finally feed its citizens.

For these farmers’ continued success, citizens and banks in Nigeria must play vital roles. Banks must increase their understanding of mechanized agriculture and how to lend money to skilled famers without such issues as kickbacks and corruption that typically plaque businesses in Nigeria. Nigeria, throughout its history, is been predisposed to welcoming whites and other people of light skins, so long as they don’t subjugate citizens to any form of slavery or exploitations. The country has often used word for that; it’s called expatriates, which in my view a misnomer and a convenient term used by Nigerian governments to show favoritism to foreign skills. The government always sees to it that expatriates are protected.

However, large scale migrations such as Zimbabwe white farmers, other westerners and Asians with skills, higher education and money are vital, and ought to be highly encouraged, to aid Nigeria make rapid progress to economic and social development. As catalyst to development, governments must ensure that they are welcomed with the right amenities and environmental conditions conducive to the development which they are to bring.

Why Nigeria hasn’t been able to develop an agrarian sector of the economy can only be attributable to failed leadership. Our neglect of agriculture incidentally, is the success of corruption among series of incompetent leaders who’ve been impervious to recognizing the economic priority needed to shift our current over dependence in the oil sector back to the production of primary products. Agriculture was the main stay of the economy at the country’s independence. During the first republic, Dr. Michael I. Okpara, brought to Umudike Umuahia, Abia State, an agricultural institution, now called federal agricultural institution; those who work there have extensive mechanized agricultural knowledge which isn’t been fully utilized by the federal government to increase food production.

Are there those who feel insulted for allowing foreigners to either jump start or develop our agricultural sector? Maybe, but it’s perfectly alright to receive inflow of foreign resources to develop any part of Africa; after all, virtually all developed areas of the world, at several stages, gathered resources and human capital from other nations, including from Africa, with which they developed their countries.

Instead of western economies spending billions of dollars seeking to put a super human race up in a distant planet in space, they can spend that money with greater returns in Africa where the people are welcoming, warm and friendly. Besides, putting a super race in space is fraught with enormous uncertainty and won’t work until Africa is first developed. On its part, African governments must create the ideal political environments to allow more foreign investments.